It’s always good to have a plan when entering the complex and fast-paced world of social media marketing. There are so many social media platforms and enabling technologies, it’s difficult to know where to start.
Having a solid plan based on well-developed goals and objectives will get you moving in the right direction. This tutorial covers tried and true social media marketing strategies along with progressive tactics to help you stand out from the crowd.
Planning Your B2B Social Media Marketing Strategy
There’s no getting around this one! If you want your business to succeed, you need to have a solid plan, and every good plan requires goals and objectives. Just winging it isn’t an option when it comes to social media marketing.
There are plenty of resources out there to help you figure out your goals and objectives and develop a social media marketing strategy. From webinars and goal planning software to tried and true formulas, there are plenty of tools to help you along. Additionally, businesses can hire consultants and companies that can figure it out for you.
Here are some proven tools and techniques to help you get the most out of your B2B social media marketing strategy.
1. Use the SMART Goal System
The SMART system is a method to help you develop effective goals. Defining your SMART Goals with measurable objectives provides a solid frame for you to take action upon. This formula also gives you a framework for you to make necessary changes and additions if things need tweaking.
The SMART acronym refers to the key features that goals need to have to make sure they benefit your company. Goals need to be:
Specific: Make sure your social media goals are as specific as you can make them. Having a goal of increasing your followers is not as specific as saying, “I want to increase my followers by 20% over the next quarter by executing an employee social media advocacy campaign.”
Measurable: Goals need to be measurable so you can track your progress or lack thereof. By having a measurement system in place, you can see if things start tanking and make adjustments before it’s too late.
Achievable: Setting goals beyond your reach is the equivalent of setting yourself up for failure. Use past reports to set reasonable goals.
Relevant: Make sure your objectives and goals are relevant to the task you’re trying to achieve. Having an objective of hiring an email marketing specialist has no relevance if your goal is to grow LinkedIn followers.
Time-Based: Having a clear timeframe in which to achieve an objective will more likely lead to successful outcomes. Figuring out the time frame at the beginning of your project can be very helpful for planning, developing milestones, and establishing a completion date.
2. Study and Understand Your Audience
You’ll likely see this advice on every B2B social media marketing strategy web search, and for good reason. To know how to shape your message, it’s vital you know everything you can about the businesses you want to reach.
There are many social media tools out there, like Talkwalker and Thryv, that can provide insight into your customer base and potential B2B social media leads. Use them to your advantage.
These social media analytic tools can also give you an idea of the demographics of your current followers and the topics they’re having conversations about, which is powerful information if you’re planning any kind of B2B social media marketing campaign.
Social media marketing strategies may differ from traditional marketing strategies because you can reach so many more potential B2B leads and customers. Each social media platform differs from the others in terms of the age and lifestyle of the users.
Your target audience will determine which of the social media platforms to focus your marketing strategies on. Here are some of the ways to determine the social media preferences of your target audience:
- Do a short interview or poll of trusted members of your ideal audience who can give you honest feedback on their social media behaviors.
- Do a survey of your target audience to gather data on their preferred social media platforms.
- Look for competitor sites and find out the social sharing habits of their audience. You should be able to find a trend that shows the social media platforms your target demographic uses.
- Do further research on your chosen social media platform to be sure that they host your target audience, that its features match your marketing needs, and whether it can help you reach your marketing goals.
3. Maintain Your Social Media Presence
Just having an account on all the social media platforms is not enough these days. You need to stay active with blog posts, customer stories, educational content, paid ads, and so on.
It’s important to post every day, but don’t flood your audience with useless information or sub-par content. There are countless ways to grow your social media presence – listed below are just a few:
- Include quality photos or videos with every post
- Use hashtags to connect with new followers
- Post valuable social media content
- Include links to your website and other profiles on your social media channels
- Build relationships by sharing and commenting on posts and stories
- Focus on your target audience
- Stay engaged and post often
- Enlist the help of social media marketing companies
- Create a content calendar to stay on track
In addition to investing in social media marketing tools, it is also a great idea to seek help from digital marketing agencies that specialize in social media marketing technologies.
These agencies will be able to do a lot of the dirty work for you by integrating accounts, creating editorial calendars, and maintaining a consistent cadence of posting, as well as keeping things up to date on the platform.
4. Create and Share Captivating Content
If you want potential B2B customers to be drawn to your social media channels, you will need to create and share content that’s appealing to your audience. Nobody will spend time on a site or post if it is of no interest to them.
Once you have grown your audience and have the attention of your ideal customer, you can begin to focus on driving engagement and customer relationships.
Engage with prospective customers and potential buyers by providing valuable, smart and helpful content, sharing customers’ success stories, and engaging in the conversations in a meaningful way showing genuine interest in them and their companies.
Your content should make it easy to find and evaluate solutions to their business challenges. Let them know how your product or service can solve a problem or give them an edge.
Posting and sharing random photos of your neighbor’s new puppy may get you a few “likes” or comments, but not the engagement you need from other companies or potential leads. Think along the lines of highlighting an employee or introducing a new service.
Posting things like thought leadership, infographics, case studies, and product sell sheets and comparison tools is a more productive way to generate potential customers. Highlighting educational content and positive customer reviews is a good tactic on sites like LinkedIn.
If you have a blog or website, posting on social media platforms could also be a means to generate leads and promote your blog or website content. You could also repurpose social media posts that generated a lot of activity if you run out of content for your blog.
In the opposite direction, if an old site post happens to be aligned with a new trending topic, content management systems like WordPress will let you repost blog pages that can be automatically linked to your social media accounts.
Captivating content is what draws the ideal customer to your social media pages and keeps them coming back for more. Make sure you’re sharing content that will generate interest and engagement.
If you’re in the technology or manufacturing sector, posting about grandma’s tamale recipe may not be appropriate if you’re trying to generate leads for your products and services..
If you don’t have quality content, you’re not going to be able to keep up with your competition. Here are some ways to enrich your social media posts:
- Think about how to incorporate current trends in your social media campaign
- Recycle, repost, and retweet high-performing posts by reusing them months later
- Use free templates to make your posts look professional
- Include user-generated content if it enhances your social media profile
- Share interesting curated content from supporting websites
- Hire professional writers and B2B content creators
- Only use quality images and videos
5. Customize Content
Regardless of the industry you’re in, you could customize content for each specific social media platform. If you think about it, something posted to Tik Tok may not be suited for LinkedIn given the user demographics of each platform.
Integrating your accounts makes it quicker and easier to reach companies looking for your service or product. However, it’s important to make sure your social media efforts aren’t thwarted by your content appearing uninteresting or useless to those you want to connect with.
Have you ever been on Facebook and seen a great photo with a bunch of hashtags? This looks sloppy and unprofessional. Make sure the social media tools and automation support you’re using reflect the buyer persona you’re trying to reach.
Here’s a brief rundown of some of the more popular social media channels and what to expect from their users.
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- LinkedIn is a platform for professionals to connect with businesses and for businesses to connect with each other.
- Facebook users tend to be more laid back. They’re looking for more personalized content and great images. Videos go a long way too. Join Facebook groups in your industry to connect with other businesses.
- Twitter moves at a faster pace than other social media platforms, so keep your posts short and sweet. The largest number of Twitter users are between the ages of 25-49, but the media, investor community, and industry influencers are also highly active here, so be sure to take advantage.
- Instagram posts should focus on visually stimulating content, then using hashtags to connect with others and increase your engagement rate.
- YouTube is the second most popular channel for businesses to share their videos. Consistently post engaging videos to expand your audience and build a community with your target audience.
- TikTok is predominantly used by younger people, which is fine. Young professionals and college graduates also own businesses, buy software, and use a lot of services.
- WeChat is the most popular social media platform in China. If you are interested in building a brand with a global reach, WeChat is similar to Facebook, but with more advanced features for lead generation.
6. Maximize Social Media Features
It’s very exciting when Facebook or Twitter launches new and interesting features for its users to play with. Check out what each platform has to offer and use these tools to your advantage.
You can use this multimedia approach to broaden your customer base by using things like Facebook’s “create an event” option, which allows you to invite potential B2B customers to an online event explaining your product or service.
Instant messaging options on platforms like Instagram can immediately connect you and a potential customer, as well as making it easy for them to leave you a message if you’re offline.
Here are some social media examples of features that can increase your engagement rate.
- Social media messaging services (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter)
- Polls and surveys (Facebook, Twitter)
- Creating and hosting Facebook events (In-person or online)
- Creating and joining groups (Facebook Groups/LinkedIn Groups)
- Facebook marketplace
- Professional accounts
- Video and phone chat options
7. Track Your Analytics
This is probably one of the most important things social media marketers can do. When it comes to B2B marketing, you need to know whether or not your social media strategies are giving you the results you envisioned.
You can gain a lot of valuable insight when studying the analytics generated from your social media accounts. You can track the number of visits your website generates from your posts, and you can see which posts are generating more interactions.
The best way to get the most out of your social media analytics is to use an automated system or application that does it for you. Luckily, most of the popular social media platforms have built-in analytics tools. Here is a list of some services:
- Twitter uses Twitter Analytics to check insights.
- Facebook will give you in-depth analytics of your page via the Insights tab.
- Instagram also uses the Facebook Insights platform for analytics.
- A premium LinkedIn account receives access to a full analytics software for your business page.
- The YouTube analytics dashboard provides insights and data on YouTube.
8. Create Lasting Connections
Social media gives us the chance to be human in an often faceless industrial world. Sometimes, social media marketers rely on this avenue to bring a sense of comfort, community, and belonging to potential and existing customers. You should do this too.
While your business goals may seem competitive and growth-driven (as they should), it’s important to remember that a little goes a long way when it comes to interpersonal communication. Use your social media channels not only as a way to grow your business but as an opportunity to make lasting connections.
Conclusion
Now, you should have a good general understanding of what a B2B social media marketing strategy is, and you should be aware of some tools and techniques that can help enhance your marketing efforts.
We hope you found this article helpful. If you’re interested in more great content about marketing and business, feel free to check out the other articles on our site.